There Is No "Justice;" ABC Orders Full Season Of "Brian"

Fox has cancelled the Victor Garber legal drama "Justice." Hey, they aired it in two timeslots with a lot of promotion for the move. That's about as much support as a show usually gets. The biggest loser here is Kerr Smith. He played the gay character Jack McPhee on "Dawson's Creek," then got all uptight about being known as the actor who played a gay guy. And on "Justice," Kerr had the second lead role, but was universally dismissed by critics as the weak link on the show.

Meanwhile, ABC picked up the back nine episodes of "What About Brian," a Monday at 10 p.m. show that absolutely no one is talking about. (Much like my favorite new series, "Friday Night Lights," I should add.) Variety says ABC has been pleased with how much of the audience "Brian" has retained from "The Bachelor." Really? I hadn't given the show a moment's thought, so I wondered if that were true. Not really. "Brian" debuted on October 9, holding on to 88% of its lead-in. In the second week, that dropped to 82%. In the third week, that dropped to 73%. And in the fourth week, that picked up a tad to 78%. It does better in the 18-49 demo and I guess that's all that matters. Still, the show has only one week of good news -- last week, when its retention stopped falling and even improved. I guess it came at the right time.